At the Crux

Friday, November 20, 2015

Thank-you for writing to me again. Asking difficult
questions is sometimes scary but you are a brave girl and I’m very proud of
you.

“I’m wondering if God is real…”

I think God is real, yes. Or maybe it would be better to
say, I feel like God is real (most of
the time). For me, God is real like the way I feel about my kids, like how you
feel about your mom and dad; that’s real, right? Maybe not “real” like a
bicycle or a book or a pair of skis – like something you can see in front of you
and pick up or put away – but real in a bigger (and better) way, like knowing
somebody loves you.

“… for me it’s confusing and starting to bug me alot… ”

This is another way God is like love. Sometimes the love we
feel is not confusing; it’s as obvious as a big hug or as simple as the floor
we stand on. But other times love can be very confusing, like when your dad has
to go away for work or your mom gets crabby (ha-ha,
that’s my sister, I know she can be crabby sometimes!) But even when it’s
confusing – and maybe especially when
it’s confusing – we can know it’s real.

“… and I want to know if you know he’s real?”

I know some math, like simple algebra. And I could probably
teach it to you. If I did, what I know about math (not much, tbqh) would become something you know. But knowing that God
is real is not teachable like math.

I could teach you some things about your mom. I would tell
you stories about her (oh boy, I have
some good ones!) But I can’t teach you that her love for you is real.
That’s something you learn by knowing her and trusting her yourself.

I could also teach you some things about God. I would tell you
stories about him. But I can’t teach you he’s real. That’s something all of us
learn (or don’t learn) and believe (or don’t believe) for ourselves.

Whenever I get confused about God I think about Jesus
instead. Sometimes ideas about God are just too big for my brain. But Jesus – he’s
not so confusing. He’s someone I can always admire and always get to know
better. I think big questions should bother us at least a little because that’s
what keeps us exploring. But sometimes explorers can get lost, so here’s a route
I’d suggest: the bible says when we get to know and understand Jesus we’re
actually getting to know and understand God. I know you like to learn and read;
maybe if you focused on learning about Jesus, on knowing him as well as you
can, these questions about God wouldn’t bug you so much?

Here’s something I know is real: I love you. Keep exploring,
Riley.

Always,

Uncle Paul

P.S. a clever poet, Rainer Rilke, once said a good thing:
“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the
questions themselves.”

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Did you know that smart people have lots of answers but really smart people have lots and lots
of questions? (You probably didn’t know that because I just made it up, but I’m
pretty sure it’s true – and I am definitely sure that it’s true about you!)
Thank-you for writing to me and thank-you for sharing your excellent questions
with me.

Your first question, “Did God make all the fish and the
Birds at once?” is a very good one. And if it weren’t for the last two words of
it, it would be an easy one, too. Yes, God made all the fish and the birds (and
everything else) – of course! – but did he make them at once? Hmm, maybe. Maybe
God made everything quickly, like in a few days, but I think it’s more likely
that he took a very, very long time. For you and I, it seems silly to take a
long time to do something that we could’ve done quickly, but God is not
impatient like us – in fact, it seems to me that God likes to take his time.

Your second question is: “Did God make all his creation from
Dust?” Yes, that might be a good way to think of it. Of course, he made the
dust, too. And he made whatever dust is made from. And he made whatever that stuff is made from, and also what it’s made from, and so on down to things
so small that we can’t even see them anymore. (If you like, we can borrow Joe’s
microscope next time you visit and look at all of the little bits inside a
piece of dust.) I believe God made everything, from the very biggest things
like planets and stars to the very smallest things like whatever is inside
dust, and I believe he made it all out of nothing. I know that sounds
impossible – making something out of nothing! – but God is able to do
impossible things.

I think the reason the Bible says
we’re made from dust is so we remember that all creatures – including you and I
– we all depend on God at every moment: without his love and energy, we’d be
like lifeless dust.

You also asked, “How old is the earth?” My best answer is: I
don’t know. But I have a friend who studied physics and geology after high school,
and she is very smart (like you). If you want, I could ask her how old she
thinks the earth is. Or, if you’re in a rush, I could google it (ha-ha, LOL, jk.) But I can say this, Riley: people who think
the earth is only a few thousand years old because they think that’s what the
Bible says are kinda messy bible-readers, IMO. They’re very nice people – most
of them – but nice people can make messy mistakes (for example, your dad: he’s
very nice but sometimes smells stinky).

Imagine throwing rocks into the
lake with some of your friends near Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Imagine that
cousin Sean is there too, and that he is wearing his fancy baseball uniform.
Wouldn’t it be strange if Sean said that you and your friends can only have
three chances to throw your rocks properly, and that you have to run around a
big square on the beach, and that if somebody catches your rock in the air then
you have to stop playing and go sit on a bench? Those are baseball rules, silly
Sean! We know that Sean really likes baseball and that he is very good at it,
but I’d have to pick him up and throw
him into the lake if he tried to make
you and your friends play by his rules. Sometimes people who really like
science and think they’re good at it try to make other people read the Bible
according to their sciencey rules. But why do that? (Sometimes I think those
people should just go jump in the lake!) The Bible isn’t a science book – it’s
a totally different thing with different kinds of answers. Sometimes it doesn’t
have the kinds of answers to fit the questions we want to ask – like this one
of yours about the age of the earth. It’s a very interesting question, but I
think it’s one of those ones the Bible doesn’t completely answer for us. The
Bible does tell us some other important things, though, like however old the
earth is, it was God who made it. In fact, the Bible tells us that God is still making it, every second of every
day.

Your last question is my favourite: “Did God get burned when
he made the sun?” To answer this, I’d like to ask you a question: did you get burned when you drew that picture of a
sun on your note to me? (Ha-ha, of course
not, silly uncle Paul!) I think God is so big and so amazing and so
powerful that he made our sun and all the other stars even more easily than you
drew that picture for me.

Riley, I hope you will always ask
hard questions because they are usually the most important ones. But now let me
tell you something that even a lot of adults don’t understand: many of the most
important questions don’t have easy answers. In fact, sometimes the really hard
questions don’t have answers at all. Or, if they do have answers, sometimes we
only learn them slowly, over the whole, long stretch of our lives. We just have
to keep asking, and keep exploring, and try to be patient.

Whenever I get an important and
difficult question in my head I ask myself if God has already answered it for
us or not. That’s when I think about Jesus. Jesus is God showing us who
he is in a way that we can (usually) understand. Jesus shows us that even
though God is big and powerful enough to make everything, he still loves you
and I and everybody else very much.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

My friend moved away. But she's not willing to just let our thing drop. So she’s asked eleven questions ‘to get to know me better’. Okay, AJ. Thank-you. Here you go:1. Describe your transition from secondary school to post secondary school. Accidental. It was midway through July, 1989 when I realized Grade 13 (an Ontario thing at the time) was optional. I was smoking tea rolled in Bible paper on a clandestine deck in the woods at the summer camp where I was working, and it was raining. I had an important lifeguard for a girlfriend at the time so I couldn’t give the decision much more than a couple hours attention. The ink ran on the paper but I mailed that college application the next day. In retrospect I don’t regret much about that summer but a little more thought about my choice of college might’ve served me better. 2. Where is one place you’ve been that you would tell others is “forgettable”? Burlington.3. Who was your favorite teacher growing up and why was that teacher so great?Easiest question of the lot: Mrs. Walker, my Grade Three matriarch. Of all the forks in my road, the one she patrolled was almost certainly the most crucial.4. Favorite Canadian band?At the moment it’s Corb Lund and the Hurtin’ Albertans.5. What kinds of books do you read just for the heck of it?Robert Frost, Czesław Miłosz, Walt Whitman, Joseph Brodsky – their Collected Poems.

6. If there was just one thing that you wish you could be a little better at, what would it be?I’ve had a persistent prayer since I was maybe 18 based on a recurring theme in the Psalms; it’s about the way wisdom and humility only travel together. I don’t know why it first occurred to me to offer it, or why it keeps popping-up, but the request comes from somewhere either deep inside me or, more likely, from somewhere or someone beyond me. I’m pretty sure it’s true: I could be better at both.7. What do you wish you knew when you were 16 that you know for sure now?Here’s a bit from Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry:“You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out – perhaps a little at a time."“And how long is that going to take?”“I don’t know. As long as you live, perhaps.”“That could be a long time.”“I will tell you a further mystery,” he said. “It may take longer.”8. How do you think you have the greatest influence in your work?Probably in ways nearly opposite to what would be the most obvious answer to this question. Maybe it’s in whatever happens when I share a sandwich with my abrupt but gentle Ucwalmicwts tutor, or in that few seconds at my two o’clock appointment when I could’ve said something but didn’t, and just listened instead.

9. Describe what retirement will look like for you.I expect Melanie and I will finally be finished with our adolescent jostling of wills and come again to naïve joy, holding hands.10. You have a meeting with an important person to talk about an important thing. Who is that person and what are you going to talk about.My guess is it’ll be with one of my parents about the recent or imminent death of the other. In a way I’ve been preparing for that conversation for years, but I won’t be ready for it.11. What eating establishment do I need to go to if money, distance, and time were of no concern.Buy a slab of Chinook salmon off the docks in Tofino and cook it in butter over a camp stove in Long Beach mist.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

The fullness of life can become either banal busyness or on
better days something more like the marginally bearable heaviness of being. The
choice is often triage. In a moment of stolen calm we can bend our necks and moan
inwardly or look proverbially upward and sigh with gratitude. The decision
seems minor at first because worry and prayer begin
from the same place. But they are not the same: worry makes an immediate U-turn at the ribcage and festers
ingrown while prayer rises off the soul like sweat from a horse’s flanks.

When Mr. Dale Wallace took the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ from his translucent thimble he threw it down the hatch with his chin to
the ceiling and his eyelids shut in rustic ecstasy. Like he’d just busted
through swinging saloon doors and slammed a gloved palm on the bar and growled
for bourbon. His eyes wet with some unknown passion and his throat straight at
the sky longing for more, it was clear to the other patrons that one should not
come between this cowboy and his elements. The world itself waited as crushed
grape blood clotted on the flailed wheat flesh in his teeth.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

I’m forty so I’m old enough to say things like, ‘When I was
a boy, [insert simplistic critical anachronism here].’ And I’ve been a
Christian for almost three decades, so let me tell you, when I was a spiritual
boy, things were simpler. Back then, I meant it when I said, ‘Jesus is my best
friend.’

But now it seems more like Jesus lived and died a long time
ago, like I can no longer say, as I once did, that he and I ‘hang out.’ I do
still believe that he kicked death’s ass; that he is somehow, somewhere alive
and well. But – maybe I’m just getting old – Jesus doesn’t seem quite as chummy
as he once did.

I saw a cougar last night. My eyes hadn’t quite adjusted,
but I saw it, dimly, and I heard it move over the crusted snow, and I felt its
presence with the hair on the back of my neck. Maybe Jesus is more like that?
Like a mountain lion, out there in the dark, a predator, watching, more aware
of me than I am of him, and very unlikely to follow me back inside for a BFF
chat. True, there’s always the Holy Spirit, present and faithful, but I’ll curb
my urge to be theologically correct for the sake of this point: God often seems
just beyond my range of vision, like a suspicious silhouette in the shadows, ready to consume my selfish flesh in a thrashing if only I would
yield to the pain and overcome my basic instinct to make a run for it.

It’s Lent. And I should probably know more about what that
means, but here’s what little I do: it’s about the prep. Lent is a season of
preparation for Good Friday and Easter. That's doubtless a simplistic explanation, but it makes
sense to me. Because, really, if the incarnate Son of God willingly died by
public execution, then properly acknowledging that event wouldn’t be something
I could just stumble into. And same for Easter: if a man has been lynched and
killed and was consequently dead but nonetheless is alive again, that too would
be something I’d need a little lead-time to celebrate properly.

There’s one more thing I know about Lent: it seems usually
to involve some kind of self-imposed dietary restrictions or otherwise
uncomfortable penitential asceticism. Normally, I’m happy to dismiss such extremes
as vain attempts to impress God. And isn’t that convenient? me-so-friendly with
Jesus that I needn’t bother with legalistic rituals? and what’s on the tube tonight? and
please pass the chips?

The thought started as a side effect from a recent Twitter
hangover: maybe I’d be closer to Jesus if I tweeted less? (God help me, that
sounds trite. But look: the Pope got a Twitter account, and now – only a few
months later – he’s decided to abdicate. Just a coincidence?)

Now I’m thinking maybe I should take it up a notch. What about
skipping the whole internet? Giving-up Facebook would be too easy, like a
neighbour who quit broccoli a few years ago. And my erratic blog behavior
wouldn’t suffer for the interruption. Dropping Instagram might make some of my
more distant followers wonder what's become of me, but I doubt I’ll tumble into the abyss if I
don’t stay LinkedIn for a few weeks. I’m pretty sure I can still write a sermon
without the googles, and my phone, apparently, works as a telephone and not
just a mini-computer so hearing it ring with a call instead of just ding with push
notifications is a real possibility. I could set an automatic reply on my email
with something hip and not-too-holier-than-thou like, ‘Hey, it’s Lent. And this
is crazy. But here’s my number. So call me, maybe?’

What would happen to my spiritual night-vision if I stared
at screens a bit less? I might be getting too old for the Buddy Christ but maybe
my eyes could still adjust to the Lion of Judah. Granted, a few weeks offline
is not likely to be the existential flaying I might need, but it couldn’t
hurt.